How it feels to fail
by Nonsuch
Summary: Jareth takes defeat badly, but rejection far, far worse...


How it feels to fail

Jareth was in a bad mood. To be honest, bad doesn't even begin to convey the depth of his feeling, imagine 'bad' printed on this page ten thousand times, then you might be getting somewhere. The reason behind his fury was simple – _it_ was called Sarah, _it_ had dark hair,_ it _had an almost blind resolve to resist and defy him at every turn. And right now, Jareth, legs flung dramatically over the arm of his throne, was asking why.

"What did I do wrong, I ask you miserable miscreants? Did I not show her her dreams, did I not give her all she asked?" He emitted a theatrical sigh, though a sigh that conveyed greater conviction than the delivery of any actor's capers on a stage.

"You threw a snake at her, do girls like snakes, Lord of our miserable hides?" There was remote, magnified bout of sniggering at the idiocy of the query from the assembled crowd of Goblins. The speaker was just _asking_ to suffer a painful and humiliating death, but Jareth had no ears for any simple-minded interruptions, so continued unperturbed.

"I threw a ball for her. A Venetian ball! Is she not aware of the huge expense I was put under? I had to raise the taxes ten fold to cover the costs, Gold-skinned servants to not come cheap I'll have you know."

"You sorta kidnapped her, Oh imperious one!" Another Goblin spoke now, they seemed to be getting into the swing of 'spotting tactical mistakes in his imperial majesty's romantic advances.'

"I showed her her dreams, and this is a girl with _strange_ dreams. In one she wished for a glass slipper to fit her foot I will inform you. I gave her a dress, a _radiant_ dress that looked more akin to moonshine than any earthly substance, that tailor had to be specially kidnapped from 17th century France I'll have you know!" Jareth's voice was rising, rising in anger. Anger that had no form of release, for Goblins saw Jareth's anger and fury as a necessary foundation of their being, it held no effect for them, so it was held inside him. Adding to and intensifying the heartache that consumed him.

"You sent a great big rolling killing machine after her, nearly killing her, Oh leather clad glorious leader." A chorus now responded to his tirade, testing the waters of his apparent disinterest in their insolence, insolence that would have warranted a spell suspended over the bog two moons ago.

"I attired myself in the most fashionable of vestments (not that I do not in regularity.) I sought out my finest cloak, lined with the feathers from the backs of a hundred owls, and did she appreciate it, no! The beguiling harpy." Though Goblins have no understanding of such complexities as resentment, Jareth did, he now knew resentment far too well for his liking. He was not sure of to whom his resentment was directed, too many to focus on, but those three, Sarah's _friends_ those who had stolen her from him. Robbed him of her warmth and affection with their simplicity and charm.

"You sent your armies after her, complete with well equipped artillery and mercenaries, Oh Lord of Shadows." The whole room now spoke as one, morose whole, disturbed by his failure to react with any of his past passion or purpose.

"I asked her to _love_ me, and how did she respond! She threw all my kindness, all shows of generosity back at me, total rejection. How could one to whom I feel so much warmth be so, so _cold._" Jareth was crying. Tears are an alien concept to a Fae, you feel as a Fae, of course you do, but a perpetual mask is in place to disguise it from view, no one is suppose to know what a Fae is feeling, it is humiliating, shaming. The tears, the resentment, the anger all were shaping a twisted malformed notion of love within him. Before he may have held romantic fancies of love, poetry, flowers, courting and the like – but they were stifled, displaced by all else. Sarah, poor little Sarah ignorant of all such happenings, was pulling him to pieces, tearing him in two, the love and the overwhelming rage were searing through him, his soul was burning. And Sarah was at the centre of all, she was the source of his wretched grief. She was destroying him, aiding to the formation of a tragic, manical figure.

"Cos you asked her to fear you." A tiny voice piped up from the now silent throng. One quivering Goblin who had seen it all, followed the events with great interest was speaking, looking up with hopeless resolve at the cold all seeing eyes of the Goblin King.

"Tell me, tell me how such a request warrants such cruelty, as you appear to have all the answers to my woe," Jareth's voice was a model of quiet and calm, a calm so absolute it could only be building to a hostile rise.

"Well – well," the little snivelling creature paused a moment, eyes long deprived of light screwing as if in great concentration, "it's cos love, well love and fear don't work together. You can't fear and love at once, it's silly, it's impossible."

"I love her. And I fear her in equal measure, you shall never understand love, poor miserable cretin. With your speak you would have put your life in forfeit under a circumstance of normality, but today is no normality. You shall leave me now, leave my chambers and do not return, all of you. Leave. Go to your homes, back to your pointless monotonous lives, leave me to my sorrow. I shall lament alone." All skittered about, delaying inevitability. For most present that chamber was home. Scores had been born, lived and even died there. Few had ever left it's vicinity, not even having seen the sun, not that they wished to. All were reluctant to step out the door, return to the cold and the squalor of the ravished Goblin City. Only when Jareth screamed repeatedly at them, threatening mass genocide, did they leave, Jareth scraping the door to a tight impenetrable shut. He was ignorant to the pitiful pattering and tapping at the door that followed, immersed irretrievably in a state of absolute melancholy. Left with his head spinning from the terrible avenues of choice now open to him. _I will see her pay. I will see her recount the moment she first gazed upon me with a flood of passion, I will see her fear me as I fear her, I will see her live to bear my name._

We leave him solitary on his throne, left to grieve alone.

* * *

This is the epilouge thing that I promised after Life Before Sarah, though it should (hopefully) make perfect sense to anyone watching the movie and consequently beleiving Jareth was in love with Sarah. This IS a oneshot. This was actually written in the year past, and was originally intended to be comedy, but as with many of these things, I ended up making it more towards the angsty angle. This is a little prelude to the sequel, and to express it simply, I could just leave it with the first line 'Jareth was in a bad mood.'

The next one I will be posting is going to be called 'The Darkness of the Day' if you want to look out ofr it.

Anyway, I hope you like it, and please, please review, it will give me more motivation to plow on with the sequel.


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